Fighting kills at least 14 in Somalia

Fighting between Somali police and Islamist gunmen killed eight people in Mogadishu on Monday, witnesses said, raising the stakes as a new president tries to bring stability to the failed Horn of Africa state.

Clashes between hardline Islamists from the al Shabaab group and a rival militia also killed six people in the central Bay region, but officials from all factions declined to comment.

Residents said the latest battles in the capital broke out on the road linking the strategic K4 junction with the hilltop presidential palace, Villa Somalia.

Among the dead in Mogadishu was a Burundian soldier from a small African Union peacekeeping mission based in the city.

“One of our troops died after a roadside bomb exploded in the south of Mogadishu today,” a senior AU officer told Reuters. “The bomb was targeted at our convoy near our base, an old university building,” he said.

Saturday, new President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed condemned a call by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for Somalis and Muslims worldwide to fight his new administration.

Ahmed was chairman of the Islamic Courts Union that ran Mogadishu in 2006 before being ousted by Ethiopian forces wary of having an Islamist state for a neighbor.

After forming an opposition party in exile, Ahmed joined the peace process last year. He now faces the daunting task of trying to establish a new security force and persuade Islamist fighters to back the government in the interest of peace.